


Twelve Hours

by ithilien22



Category: As the World Turns
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-02
Updated: 2008-03-02
Packaged: 2017-12-21 04:44:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/895944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ithilien22/pseuds/ithilien22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the span of twelve hours, everything changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twelve Hours

It all began with an alarm clock. Or, more accurately, it didn’t.

When Luke awoke that morning he glanced blearily up at the alarm clock on his bedside table only to find that it was not, as he had assumed, a quarter to eight. He rubbed his eyes in an attempt to wake himself more fully, but no matter how many times he closed his eyes and then opened them again the fluorescent numbers still read 9:14, which meant that his literature exam was in exactly sixteen minutes.

Cursing under his breath, he stumbled blindly towards the dresser still half-asleep. He tossed multiple clothing items aside in his futile attempt to find his favorite pair of jeans, wondering vaguely how his jeans drawer had suddenly become his sock drawer and why on earth they were all so neatly folded. Eventually it registered that he had been tearing through his boyfriend’s dresser instead of his own and he had wasted a whole three minutes doing so. He quickly picked up a pair of the discarded socks and put them on, along with his tennis shoes, which had been lying at the foot of the bed. Then, without bothering to check how bad his bed head was, he grabbed his backpack and his keys and was off. 

As he drove towards campus – breaking nearly every traffic law in existence on the way – it occurred to him that he had never properly got dressed and was, in fact, still wearing his pajamas. Not even his sexy pajamas either, but his old Star Wars ones, which couldn’t really be considered sexy at all, or even remotely cool. In spite of this, Luke smiled slightly, remembering how Noah had made dorky Luke Skywalker jokes all night, which probably should have been annoying, but had been kind of endearing coming from Noah. Still, just because his boyfriend found his pajamas cute didn’t mean his professor would, especially if he showed up late to class. 

Luke shook his head to clear away the unwanted thought. All he could focus on at that moment was getting to class in time to take his exam. Any embarrassment about his state of dress would have to wait until after that had first been addressed. And preferably until after he had at least a few cups of coffee in his system.

Thankfully, by the grace of God – or, at the very least, the critical lack of traffic cops in Oakdale – he managed to make it to class just as the professor was about to leave the room, and she graciously stopped to give him a copy of the exam. The graduate student proctoring the exam gave Luke a once over and raised his eyebrows, but Luke was feeling too victorious to care. When he finished the exam nearly an hour and a half later, he was positive that he’d aced it.

Still, he was in desperate need of caffeine. So despite his attire, he headed over to Java after class instead of going straight back to the apartment. Java’s coffee was excellent, but the looks he received as he walked in almost made him wish he’d just waited to make a pot when he got home. Plus, the cute barista seemed so perplexed by Luke’s wardrobe that he didn’t even try to flirt with Luke like he usually did. Slightly dismayed, Luke took his coffee to go and thankfully saw very few people on his way back to the car. By the time he returned to the apartment, his large coffee was completely gone, and he was more than ready to take a long, hot shower (maybe with Noah to accompany him) and then change into something he could actually be seen in.

That was not, however, what actually happened.

* * *

When Luke opened the door, he found Noah waiting for him, an odd, pained expression on his face. The apartment looked like a mini tornado had swept through it, and it took Luke a moment to realize that the tornado had actually been him, scrambling to get out of the house that morning. He thought, at first, that maybe that was what Noah was upset about, so he tried to cut him off at the pass.

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry I left the apartment like this,” he said, shutting the door behind him, “but you would not believe the morning I’ve had…”

“You had no right to go through my things, Luke,” Noah interrupted, clenching his fists at his side the way he did when he was trying to hold back his anger.

“What are you…?” Luke tried, but Noah cut him off again.

“Just because we’ve got our own place and we’re sharing a room now doesn’t mean that you can just go through anything you want,” he said, his voice getting louder as he continued. “Some of my things are private, okay? Am I not allowed to have any privacy anymore?”

Luke was trying desperately to follow Noah’s train of thought, but he was having an extremely difficult time of it, especially since his coffee had not had nearly enough time to kick in yet. 

“Is this about the socks?” he asked finally, thinking back to how he’d mistakenly opened Noah’s dresser that morning and was therefore still currently wearing a pair of the offending articles. 

Now it was Noah’s turn to look confused. “What?” 

“The socks,” Luke repeated. “I mean, it wasn’t like I intended to steal them, or to destroy the apartment in the process, for that matter. I just, you know, wasn’t exactly having the greatest morning.”

He gestured at his pajama pants for emphasis. 

Noah stared at him for a moment, then looked at the pajamas and then back up at Luke’s face. He shook his head slightly as if trying to clear it. Again he asked, “What?” 

Luke wasn’t quite sure how to clarify his side of things much better without launching into the entire story starting with the alarm clock, especially since he was beginning to get the impression that he and Noah weren’t even talking about the same thing. Still, Noah’s anger from earlier did seem to have drained out of him for the most part, so Luke took that as an encouraging sign.

“Um, how about you tell me what you’re talking about first?” he suggested. “Because I really don’t think we’re on the same page here.”

“You went through my dresser,” Noah stated, though he sounded somewhat uncertain now.

“For the socks,” Luke jumped in to add, before Noah could continue.

“The socks?” Noah repeated warily.

“Yes. I woke up super late this morning, so I ended up going through the wrong dresser and stealing a pair of your socks in my half-asleep, mad dash to get to class on time.” He paused for a moment, considering. “Why? What else would I have been looking for in your dresser?”

Noah sat down heavily on the loveseat and rubbed his temples. He suddenly looked very, very tired.

“So, you really didn’t read them?” he asked at length.

“Read what?” Luke exclaimed. “Noah, I can honestly say that I’ve never been so confused about a conversation in my entire life.”

Seeming to deflate right in front of him, Noah mumbled, “Nevermind. I’m sorry I jumped down your throat.”

“Oh, no,” Luke shot back, “no way. There is no way I’m letting you off the hook just like that. Are you seriously trying to tell me that after three years you’re _still_ hiding things from me? No. That’s going to stop. Right now.”

“Luke, come on, that wasn’t what I was saying…” Noah tried.

“No, that is _exactly_ what you were saying,” Luke countered, cutting him off. “You nearly tore my head off when I got home because you thought I’d found something of yours that you were hiding. So out with it! What’s the big secret? What were you trying to keep from me?”

“Letters,” Noah finally mumbled, staring intently at his feet.

“Letters?” 

“From my father,” Noah clarified in that same small voice.

Luke felt himself sink down into the armchair across from Noah, the frustration and anger suddenly disappearing, replaced by a sick, churning sensation in the pit of his stomach that appeared any time the Colonel was brought up in a conversation.

“How long has he been writing to you?” Luke asked eventually, mostly because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“We’ve been writing for about a year or so,” Noah answered, still staring at his shoes.

Luke’s entire body tensed at Noah’s wording.

“You’ve been writing him back?” he asked, hating himself for the way his voice trembled.

Noah looked up at him slowly, his eyes filled with so many emotions that it almost made Luke dizzy to look at them. 

“Yes,” Noah admitted softly, “I have.”

* * *

Once Luke fully processed what Noah had said, his anger returned full force. Accusations were thrown back and forth, insults were made on both sides, and things were said that couldn’t ever be taken back. Luke started to cry somewhere in the middle, and at one point Noah threw a lamp across the room in frustration. Eventually, the man in the apartment below them began banging on the ceiling for them to keep it down, but by then there was no stopping it. They were both already completely gone.

As far as first fights go it was probably fairly standard, but given that it had taken three years to happen and that most of the issues raised had been brewing for that entire time, it all seemed to explode with that much more intensity. By the time the screaming had finally stopped, they were thoroughly exhausted and somehow no longer a couple.

Luke packed a duffle bag quickly, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to start again. The look Noah gave Luke as he walked towards the door nearly broke Luke’s heart, but he didn’t stop. When he got out to his car he cried for about fifteen minutes before he even felt calm enough to start the engine and pull out. He was still wearing his pajamas.

When he arrived at the farm it was quiet – a rarity for which Luke was extremely grateful. He knew that if he ran into anyone from his family they would ask him what was wrong, and he knew that would set him off all over again. Instead, he was able to make his way through the deserted house and into his old bedroom without incident, falling into the bed with a grateful sigh. Despite the caffeine that had finally hit his bloodstream, he felt so drained by then that he fell asleep almost instantly.

He woke up several hours later to his father’s weight settling at the edge of the bed. When Luke blinked up at him, Holden’s concerned eyes were just too much, and before he could even ask, Luke started crying again and babbling about the stupid alarm clock and the socks and how he could never, ever take it back. His father held him while he cried and stroked his back like he had when Luke was a little kid and used to wake up screaming from nightmares. 

“It’ll be okay,” Holden promised softly. “Shhh, it’ll be okay.”

Except this time, Luke wasn’t so sure that he believed him. 

When he had finally calmed down again, Holden reluctantly left, but not before pressing a kiss to Luke’s forehead. As the door closed behind him, Luke glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table to see how long he had been asleep. 9:14, it told him, almost mockingly. Luke wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to cry. It was hard to wrap his mind around the fact that so much could change in the span of twelve hours. With a little more vigor than necessary, he grabbed the cord to the alarm clock and yanked it out of the socket. 

He couldn’t help but feel vaguely satisfied when the fluorescent display disappeared.


End file.
